Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day002.13
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20
A. Oh, in retrospect, good Lord, yes! In retrospect, you
could look out of the back of the truck as it goes
trundling down the highway of history and you say, "I wish
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I never get to know him", but we have all met people like
that, my Lord. This should not be held against me.
People change.
There is one particular gentleman called
Mr Althans, Ewald Althans, who figures in this
correspondence. He was a German character who I got
to
know when he was a student. I first met him, I think,
in
1989 and my first impressions of him which I have
recorded
in my diary was that he was a very forceful,
energetic,
forthright and fearless young man.
It subsequently turned out he held opinions
that
could be really categorised as extreme, that he was,
in
fact, an agent of the German government and an agent
provocateur because he testified to that effect when
he
finally got his comeuppance. I bitterly regret ever
having made his acquaintance, and certainly if he came
anywhere near me I would say, "Go away". If he came
to my
front door, I would pretend I was not in. Well, if
that
can be held against me, my Lord, then I think this is
an
unjust society. These things happen. People change
as
you get to know them. They become different from the
way
they were when you first knew them.
Q. So you are saying really, are you, that you want to be
judged by what you said rather than by what people you
may
have been at the same meeting with?
A. My Lord, I am very satisfied to be judged on what I
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have said verbally which is recorded in great
abundance in
the transcripts. I am very satisfied to be judged on
the
basis of what I have written to any of these
gentlemen,
but I do not think I should be judged on the basis of
what
they may have said either to me or to others. That is
their own affair. Frequently, I have had cause to
reprimand them privately and say, "Do not do it".
For example, I remember one trip I made to
South
Africa. The South Africans are a different people
from
us. They have different attitudes to us. I visited
South
Africa on a speaking tour and I went to Johannesburg
Airport to pick up my assistant who was to accompany
me
and I warned her; I said, "You will find the people
here
in Johannesburg treat coloured people in a manner
which is
totally repugnant to us, but I must request you not to
say
anything about it because we are their guests", but
that
is as far as you can go.
Q. The last topic, is there anything you want to add?
A. No, my Lord -- unless you wanted to ask me about any
specific names that they have mentioned? You do not?
Q. Well, I was not proposing to, but if you want to say
anything about, for example, Mr Zundel who is,
perhaps,
more important than most of the others.
A. Mr Zundel, I can speak about very briefly. I first
met
Mr Zundel, Z-U-N-D-E-L, who is a German of Canadian
extraction who has been in constant hot water for the
last
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10 or 15 years, but is sill in the eyes of the law
blameless, in other words, he has not been convicted
on
anything he has been accused of which is a matter not
to
be taken lightly, of course. A lot of accusations
have
been made against him, but he has so far not been
found
guilty of anything.
I first heard about him before 1986 in the
most
disparaging terms. In 1986, I conducted around the
world
lecture tour, and coming up from Australia and Fiji to
Vancouver, I was met at Vancouver Airport in Colombia,
in
Canada, by a man who introduced himself in the car to
me
as Mr Douglas Christie. I said, "But you are the
barrister for Mr Zundel, are you not, in the hearings
in
Toronto?" He said, "Yes, I am. I am chairing the
meeting
tonight". I was so shocked by this that I telephoned
my
tour organizer in Australia immediately and said, "I
am
afraid I cannot allow Mr Christie to act as chairman
of
tonight's meeting". My hostility to Mr Zundel at that
time was so pronounced I would not even allow his
barrister to come near me, in other words.
I then flew across to Toronto where I was to
speak and I was picked up at Toronto Airport by two
gentlemen who drove me down town, and half way down
the
Queen Elizabeth Highway into Toronto, one of the
gentlemen
turned to the other and said, "Ernst, I think we will
put
Mr Irving off at his hotel first". I said, "Do you
mind
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if I ask who you are?" and he said, "Yes, I am Ernst
Zundel". I am afraid I was terribly shocked to be
found
sitting in the same car with him because the
blackening of
his name at that time had gone to such an extent that
not
only did I not want to be associated with his
barrister,
but not with him either.
Now I say that, having got to know him over
the
next two or three years, you realize that the
reputation
he had and the man he was were two different things.
He
was an enbattled person, coming under, I will not even
say
the same kind of attack as I have, he came under the
most
vicious kind of attack which included the burning down
of
his house and a constant onslaught and violent and
physical assault, and he was bearing himself up with
more
fortitude than taste; and you had to realize that he
was a
man with a certain intellect, a certain sense of
humour
and execrable private opinions. That is the only way
that
I can characterize him.
Q. Yes.
A. I repeatedly said this, my Lord. I have sent him
messages
and letters and I have said that, frankly, your
opinions
are off the wall -- in fact, they are off the map.
The
correspondence has been in the discovery for the
Defendants and they could have seen it and, no doubt,
it
has alarmed them because it does not confirm the
picture
that they would have wished to portray.
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Q. But you agreed to give evidence at his trial?
A. I thought it was my duty as an historian, as a public
citizen, to give evidence. I did not realize at the
time
the odium that would accrue. In fact, the element of
odium, I think, would have been impossible in this
country. I think it would have been almost a contempt
for
witnesses to be subjected to the kind of onslaught
that
I was after I gave evidence in that trial, but it
happened. I wrote letters to the newspapers about it.
I said, "This will be completely impossible in
England".
The letters were published, but there it is.
If people ask me now, as they have, "Would
you
do it again?" I say, "No, I would not", not because I
did
not consider my duty to give the evidence I gave as
an historian, and I understand the Judge afterwards
said
that he had never had such a convincing witness, but
it
was a mistake, because of the fact that that has been
used
as a reason to destroy me subsequently. Frankly, I do
not
seek personal destruction. If I was given the chance
to
do it again, if the people who have destroyed me since
came to me now and said, "Mr Irving, we are prepared
to
put you back where you were", I would say, "Show me
what
I have to sign and I will do it". It is as simple as
that.
Q. Then, finally, I think this is the last topic that you
need to deal with, the allegation that you broke an
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agreement in relation to the microfiche containing the
Goebbels' diaries by removing them from Moscow, or
from
the archive in Moscow, and risking damage to them.
A. Yes. Well ----
Q. You dealt with this quite thoroughly in your opening.
A. Yes, I have to be a bit careful because you have
actually
compounded two elements in that statement. You said
by
removing the glass plates and by something else. I do
not
know what the agreement was supposed to have been. I
have
dealt with this quite thoroughly in my opening
statement,
and I am happy to aver here on oath that what I said
in my
opening statement in this respect, as in other
respect, is
true to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Ten years nearly, or eight years, have
passed
since that time when I was in Moscow and I obtained
the
diaries. You will be hearing the evidence of Mr Peter
Miller who was with me at the time; and there is no
written agreement either in my discovery or in the
discovery produced by the Defendants who have had
close
collaboration with the Russian archival officials,
will be
able to cross-examine the Russian witnesses, and on
this
occasion they will be giving evidence, I understand,
and I
think, perhaps, we had better reserve judgment until
after
we have had the opportunity of hearing all that.
But, to the best of my knowledge and belief,
there was no agreement, and I have made the admission
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(which I had to) which was quite proper about having
illicitly or illegally or even improperly removed the
glass plates on the archives and returned them the
next
day and whatever which, to my mind, not such a big
deal
because they allowed me to two days later anyway.
Q. Well, so far as I am concerned, that is all I was
going to
invite you to give evidence about, leaving aside
Auschwitz, but do feel free to add anything that you
think
has not been sufficiently covered before you are
cross-examined.
A. I only wanted to say that you asked me earlier about
the
consequences of the book. I mentioned the pecuniary
consequences and I mentioned the consequences for my
career, but there has also been a more intangible
consequence, that I have found myself subjected to a
burden of hatred which you cannot quantify, but which
is
quite definitely there, the blank telephone calls, the
obscene messages and so on. I would give only one
example, my Lord, of the kind hatred -- well, two
examples: one when I was assaulted in the Book
Exhibition
in Chicago -- in Los Angeles which I attended with my
publishing imprint a few weeks ago when a member of
the
Jewish community -- a very notorious member of the
Jewish
community; one of the most extreme members in the
United
States with a long criminal record -- came up to the
stand
and screamed that he was going to come back and kill
me,
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"You're a Holocaust denier" he screamed as he was led
away by the police, using the phrase coined by the
Second
Defendant.
The second one would make more sense to your
Lordship if you are aware of who Philip Bullard is.
Philip Bullard was the head of the Nazi Extermination
Programme for the mentally and physically disabled,
the
Euthanasia Programme.
Q. Yes, I know.
A. My Lord, I had the great misfortune in September to
lose
my eldest daughter. After we buried her, I received a
phone call from the undertakers that another wreath
had
come. When the wreath was delivered late that
afternoon,
it was a very expensive and elaborate wreath of white
roses and lilies -- far more expensive than we could
have
afforded -- with a card attached to it saying, "Truly
a
merciful death", "It was truly a merciful death",
signed
"Philip Bullard and friends". I should mention that
my
daughter was disabled in all those respects. She was
legless and she had been brain damaged for 18 years.
I submit that this is the kind of hatred
that
this book has subjected me to -- something
intolerable,
something unspeakable, and which I would wish no other
person to be subjected to.
Q. Yes.
A. Thank you.
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Q. Is there anything you wish to add?
A. Not to that, my Lord, no, and in any other respect I
think
that you have drawn the essentials out of my
admirably, as
was only to be expected.
Q. Well, you will have the opportunity, obviously, to
amplify
your case after cross-examination, if you wish to.
Now,
I do not know whether we need to clear the decks
before
you cross-examine so that Mr Irving has the documents
that
you mentioned earlier on, Mr Rampton?
MR RAMPTON: I do not know how best to do it. I have to
say
(and I will say it again; I sort of hinted at it
yesterday) this is the most ghastly inconvenient and
uncomfortable court I have ever been in. That is
nobody's
fault. I can hardly stand up. I cannot get at my
documents.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I wish I thought I could do something
about
it.
MR RAMPTON: I say that as a preliminary. The witness is
miles
away from the files that he needs. I can hardly see
him
because of this pillar and my learned junior cannot
see
him.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Otherwise you are pretty happy!

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